I stared into the viewing screen at the violet sky as escape pod 3 descended to
the landing pad. Epsilon Cygni was well above the horizon now and its light
bathed the buildings of the base and the township. I looked sideways at Elias.
“It has changed some in 500 years,” I said.

The lights were dim; energy
conservation was a big part of the normal routine of life on a starship.

Akjnar slowly paced the floor
of the planning room off Main Control as he waited for his command team to
assemble, get some goosh or coffee to drink and take their seats; it was the
closest he would ever get to a display of impatience. His team were not tardy or
unmotivated, it just took some finite time to bring them together; but any time
he did not have all the facts at his fingertips was a time when he was unhappy,
as they all knew well.

“You first Torkaz,
Engineering status.”

“The ship is functioning
within normal operating parameters with one reactor hot and one on stand-by.
There are a couple of minor unit failures or failure predictions to address but
they do not affect ship’s power or propulsion systems.”

“Sagmar.”

“Defensive and weapons
systems are fully operational. I’ve put defensive screens on lowest power
setting but they are not activated. I have energized the G-ray laser but it is
on stand-by setting; the other weapons systems are not powered at this time.”

“Hokjan, do we know how
long?”

“I have checked the
independent cocoon logs and they indicate we were in the conduit 78 years: M33
was further from our galaxy than Andromeda.”

“Our position, Borgan?”

“Commander, you will be
relieved to hear that I have identified the nearby star patterns and we are two
months out from Khellen on a heading that will keep us more than four billion
kilometres away.”

“Excellent; we have exceeded
even my expectations.”

“Commander, there is a
problem,” said Borgan.

“What is the problem?”

“By my evaluation, based on
computer modelling of the Khellen system, the relative position of the planets
in the system is not compatible with an elapsed time of 521 years which is how
much time we have spent travelling by our computer reckoning since we left
Khellen … the model is based on Terran years.”

“Based on your analysis of
the current position of the planets, how much time has really passed?”

“The planetary positions are
closest to values in the model of 193 or 687 years; obviously 193 years is
impossible since we took 353 to get to Shaarg-4 before we even entered the
conduits.”

“You are saying that 687
years have passed on Khellen although our computers have recorded only 521?”

“Yes,” replied Borgan.

“Not only that,” interrupted
Hokjan. “By our shipboard time reckoning, 521 years have passed since we left
Khellen, but I don’t think we have aged significantly while we have been in the
conduits; in biological terms we are only about 353 years older … that’s a
separate issue of course.”

“Right now, I’m most
interested in the relative positions of the cruiser fleet commanded by Sheena
and Gavlan,” said Akjnar; “and Su-zen, Lorkan and the others in C2-4.”

“Well,” said Borgan, “if 687
years have passed since we left Khellen and it took 353 years to get to Shaarg-4
via Terra before we split up, then they would have had about 334 Terran years to
make a return trip that we estimated at 330 years in the slower cruisers by the
slightly more direct route … they would have made it back to Khellen about four
years ago if those estimates were accurate.”

“That is exactly what I was
getting at,” said Akjnar. “There is no point planning to rendezvous with Sheena
and Gavlan if they have already reached Khellen.”

“Where will Su-zen and the
others be now?” asked Torkaz.

“Assuming they successfully
returned to Andromeda in the estimated 24 years and activated the conduit at
Brzeel-1.7.1, they will have been in that second conduit en route to Shaarg-4
for about 54 years. They would have about 18 years conduit time to go as we
calculated but, since we are now in normal space-time, that will be 36 years to
us.”

“Borgan, find me an asteroid
to hide behind,” said Akjnar.

“Yes, Commander; may I ask
why?”

“We need time to think on
several subjects. Firstly, since we have been gone from Khellen for over 680
years, then we hardly belong there anymore … who knows how they will have
evolved in seven centuries. Secondly, if we are not going to intercept Sheena
and Gavlan because they have already made it back to Khellen four years ago,
then we may be better going directly to Terra to meet up with Su-zen. Thirdly,
after talking to Torkaz, I want to think about building our own
conduit-generating mechanism on board the starship: maybe we can jump over to
Terra in ‘the blink of an eye’ as James would say. And so, while we consider
these issues, I don’t wish to be detected by anyone.” He emphasized the last
word.

There were nods of
understanding.

“It is possible that, armed
with the knowledge brought back by Sheena and Gavlan, another Khellen expedition
is even now heading for Terra or Shaarg-4,” observed Torkaz.

“Yes, that is another
possible complication,” said Akjnar.

* * *

“Release me, Shee-teh,” he used
the affectionate term for lover.

“I have not finished with you
yet,” she said dangerously.

“There is no more to take
from me,” he said gently.

She relaxed her clasper
muscles, released his penis and rolled her body to one side. He turned, gave her
a final kiss and sat up.

“Two hours,” he cried looking
at the digital clock: “what kind of a creature are you, I will be old and
withered a hundred years before my time.”

He heard her purring softly
and turned to see the red eyes, ablaze with her pleasure, staring up at him.

“You would not have it any
other way.”

“You are correct as always.”
He smiled at her, his own eyes bright.

“What is so important you
leave your Shee-teh only partially satisfied?”

“It is a question of time; I
must find a way to cross a galaxy in the wink of an eye.”

“Can we do this?”

“Perhaps; Torkaz is
investigating.”

* * *

“Are we secured behind the
asteroid?”

“Yes, Commander: it isn’t
much bigger than we are so we have no difficulty pushing it along and we have
established a full sensor array on the far side,” replied his Engineering
Sub-Commander.

“So; what do you think about
starship-based conduit generation, Torkaz?”

“I’ve discussed with Jaard
and we both wish Elias could have been here and involved. Obviously we can
create three generators producing negative energy beams and a focusing
mechanism, by replicating what we have seen on the pyramids of Shaarg-4 and
Brzeel-1.7.1; and the starship is big enough that we could construct them on the
outer hull in the same relative positions as the planetary-based configurations,
about 200 metres apart.”

He paused for breath and
continued.

“The problem is the control
mechanism. We can produce and focus three negative-energy beams to create a
conduit opening but we do not know with certainty how to target a desired
location. A close approximation, such as we have achieved with very minor
tinkering of the Old Ones’ settings on Salac-4 to bring us here, is not so
critical from galaxy to galaxy but from point A to point B within a galaxy, this
is more hazardous; interstellar space is not so empty as the intergalactic void
… to be out by a billion kilometres might put us right in the middle of a star
system with no time to slow down before we smashed into a planet or some other
orbiting body, including the star itself.”

“But we could create the beam
generators and focusing mechanism and test that setup to the point of generating
a conduit opening and we know we can generate continuing negative energy pulses
to negotiate passage through a conduit,” mused Akjnar. “How could we test
directional control?”

“We could rig an escape pod
with a negative pulse generator and send it into the conduit to a target area
with its engines programmed to bring it to a complete halt at the other end: we
could even program collision evasion manoeuvres on exit until the pod was halted
and then we collect it and see how close to target we were.”

“I suppose that would take
some time?”

“Yes, Commander: at maximum
time/phase speed, to make an inter-stellar hop of say five light-years, which
would be a reasonable test for conduit delivery of a pod, it would take us six
years to arrive and locate the pod assuming it was somewhere near the intended
target area. And probably we’d need four or five test runs so it could take 30
years to get it right.”

It was a sobering thought.

“But the alternative,” said
Akjnar, “is that it will take Su-zen and the others 36 years from now to reach
Shaarg-4 and us about 330 years to get there and that is no good at all.”

Torkaz regarded him
thoughtfully.

“If we could establish
conduit-generation capability aboard the starship and get good directional
control, we could be completely independent of the Old Ones’ mechanisms.”

“I knew you would understand,
Torkaz. Not only that; the Salacians’ mechanisms may require maintenance: we had
to adjust the system on Salac-4 for intergalactic ‘drift’ and we don’t know if
the Tragghan system is even operational, or whether we could get to it through
the hostile Zhin.”

“The Zhin are another
potential problem; we don’t know how they
have evolved since we were at Traggha 580 years ago.”

“Good point, Hokjan,” said
his commander. “We might be wise to make our first ‘hop’ to Traggha and check on
that.”

“If we are successful in
establishing our shipboard conduit-generating capability, with good directional
control, we might then consider disabling the pyramids at Traggha,” said Torkaz.

“There’s no need,” replied
Akjnar. “Then we make our second ‘hop’ over to Terra and
єCygni-5, meet with Su-zen and the
others and together check on the Terran evolution.”

“But the big problem remains
building the directional control mechanism: so far we’ve only adjusted the Old
Ones’ mechanism back on Salac-4 and we don’t have that equipment here. And we do
not know the principles by which it works, so building an equivalent unit from
scratch will be difficult,” said his Chief.

“Maybe we could take the unit
from Traggha,” said Sagmar, “and bring it aboard.”

“How long to Traggha at
maximum time/phase?” Borgan asked.

“It took us a hundred years
last time from Khellen, but we have improved the efficiency of both reactors and
our MAM drive since then,” replied Torkaz.

“Not only that,” said Sagmar;
“we had only one reactor powering the MAM drive back then to conserve fuel but
today, we have plenty of nuclear fuel from our salvage operations in the Brzeel
system.”

“That’s true,” agreed Torkaz.
“With both reactors hot and the MAM drive flat out in the safety zone, we might
get there direct from here in about 70 years.”

Akjnar summed it up.

“By which time Su-zen and her
crew would have reached Shaarg-4, upgraded the pyramid receivers and be 34 years
along the way to єCygni-5 and Terra
with about another 34 years to go which would give us just enough time to
establish and test directional control of our shipboard conduit-generation
system and still intercept them before they reach their goal.”

He smiled at them, pleased.

“I believe we have a plan so,
for the next few days, we have time to work out some details: Torkaz, how to get
the most from the engines; Borgan, the best course to Traggha to take advantage
of gravitational ‘slingshot’ opportunities; Sagmar, you can supervise work on
the resolution of our minor equipment failures and failure predictions. Hokjan
and I will advise the rest of the crew and prepare everything for a
suspended-animation voyage to Traggha. Anything else?”

“I need four days,
Commander,” said Torkaz: “to complete the programming and testing of the three
new androids.”